Cygwin SSH Server on Windows 7 RC

From:
"andrew cooke" <andrew@...>

Date:
Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:22:40 -0400 (CLT)

It appears that Cygwin's sshd works just fine on Windows 7. In short, you
just follow the instructions at /usr/share/doc/Cygwin/openssh.README and
do a rebase. A little more detail below:
I assume you can install Cygwin itself. Once installed, all the following
was done with Admin privs (right click on the cygwin log and select "run
as administrator" or similar to start a shell that is the Window's
equivalent of root).
First, run the ssh-host-config script. This is quite helpful, and wil
prompt for various issues. If you need to re-run there's no need to
re-create files you created first time through (so answer "no" at the
appropriate prompts).
I can't remember exactly what choices I made, but they were the obvious
ones once you understand that you need to run sshd as a service, and that
a separate user has to be created to do this with the appropriate
permissions.
Eventually you will get to the end of the script. You can then start the
sshd process with:
cygrunsrv --start sshd
(and --stop to stop). However, when I tried to connect that gave an error
(try ssh user@... and then tail /var/log/sshd.log). To fix this you
need to do the magical rebaseall. Again, this explains what is needed if
you run it, but in short: close all cygwin related processes (windows and
sshd); start a CMD prompt with admin privs; cd /c:\cygwin\bin; run "ash";
inside ash run "/usr/bin/rebaseall".
Finally, to connect from outside, you need to open the firewall. This
involves finding the firewall (I just clicked at random on various GUIs
until I got a suitable link) and then adding a rule that allows access to
the TCP port 22.
With that done, and the service restarted, it appears to work.
Andrew

Extra Notes on Repeating Install

From:
andrew cooke <andrew@...>

Date:
Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:51:52 -0300

I just reinstalled Windows (the preview is expiring, so I bought a
release version). The notes above, apart from all the typing errors
(sorry) are pretty much correct. The only think I was surprised to
see was that sshd *did* appear to work OK when first installed, but
failed once the system was rebooted (after which, rebaseall got it
back working again).
For my own reference, the following is also necessary if you are
running Windows in a VirtualBox VM and are using it as way to tunnel
over Cisco VPN (don't ask...):
- Make sure the network is "bridged" (the default creates a new DHCP
server inside VB which is amazingly confusing if you're not expecting
it)
- Remember to add shared folders to VB while the image is turned off
(you can't just add a network folder if you haven't configured one
and you can't configure one if the image is running).
Andrew